Skip to main content

Potato pancakes

I had a birthday recently, and my parents' present this year was a couple of cookbooks to add to my collection.  They are both collections of vegetarian recipes, and manage to incorporate things I would actually cook, which are also slightly different to what I cook all the time.  Cottage pie?  Sure.  Indian spiced vegetarian cottage pie?  Now that sounds interesting.




So the other day I was feeling adventurous, and came across a recipe for potato pancakes with spiced beetroot in the Accidental Vegetarian.  Is it me, or has beetroot become fashionable all of a sudden?  I can't remember when I last ate beetroot, never mind cooked with it.  In my head it was firmly tucked away with other weird muddy knobbly vegetables like celeriac and artichokes, that you've vaguely heard of but wouldn't have a clue what to do with.  And then suddenly you pick up a supermarket magazine and the cover story is something like, 10 best things to do with beetroot!

Anyway, the beetroot?  All well and good.  Turns out you can pick up a packet of it for about 80p, all ready-cooked and peeled and everything.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy, as Toby is fond of saying.

The potato pancakes?  Well, have you had those moments where you're halfway through some process and it's taken twice as long as you thought already and you wonder why you ever started?  Yeeaaahhh.  One of those.

Boil potatoes.  Yup.  Easy enough.  Pass through potato ricer or sieve.  Umm, I'm sure a potato ricer is very useful and all, but it's not something I've ever felt led to spend money on.  Until now, when I'm discovering exactly how tedious it is to try and push potatoes through a sieve.  Jesus talked about camels going through the eye of a needle; I could give him another illustration if he needed it.  Not being a chef, he probably never even considered that anyone might be dumb enough to want to sieve a potato.  (Although - how dumb do you have to be to want to get a camel through a needle, either?)

After much bashing and scraping, I gave up and tossed the rest of the potato into the mixing bowl.  If I mix it with the electric mixer, that'll work, won't it?  Add the flour.  Add the milk, gradually.  Aaagghhh!  The mixture's not only clogging up the beaters, it's creeeeeping up the stems and... quick!  Turn the mixer off before it becomes completely engulfed in mashed potato!  Drat.  Drat drat drat drat.

Scrape it all off.  Resort to spatula for mixing.  Wonder how there got to be bits of potato stuff all over the floor, the tiles, the fruit bowl and the pot of baking powder.  Look guiltily at watch and realise the boy should have got up from his nap twenty minutes ago, but hey, he's still sleeping and I. will. not. let. this. beat. me.  Somehow, this bowl of lumpy oatmeal slop is going to turn into pancakes.

Heat up frying pan.  Realise that the recipe's "large spoonful" equates to about a half-cup measure.  In what world is that a large spoonful?  Pour in the mixture.  Spread it out...

You know what?  Somehow, it did turn into pancakes.  They weren't bad, either, and the recipe made lots, so I have some in the freezer that I can pull out and serve without the two hours of crazy mess-making work.  Even Toby ate them (and appears to like beetroot, of all things) and he is being incredibly fussy about eating dinner right now.

Lest you think it was a completely happy ending... Toby still wasn't up when Graham got home from work, which is far too late, and he'd napped so long he woke up wet and incredibly cranky, and I felt like a horrible mum, and... oh yes, it was all fun and games for a few minutes.

But look!  I tried a new recipe!  I didn't get a photo of the beetroot version, and it really wasn't as photogenic as the beautiful picture in the book, anyway.  So here's the breakfast incarnation.  Greek yoghurt, fresh pineapple and a drizzle of maple syrup.  Mmmmm.


Anyone have a potato ricer they want to give me?

Comments

Sally Eyre said…
We love ours, pop over and borrow it if you want? Having gone through a couple of metal ones which bent out of shape, plastic is the way to go.

Popular posts from this blog

Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Ashbourne - Longford

The Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk follows the "general direction of Prince Charles Edward Stuart's march from Ashbourne to Derby". ( Derby Ramblers ) I'm inclined to think that the prince would have had the sense to follow the main road rather than tramp across muddy fields, but a route following the modern A52 would not be particularly pleasant.  The appeal of the walk for me was not really the historical accuracy, though. More that it was close to home, fairly short, and unlikely to be flooded even in the current climate. It has turned into my Lent walk: starting on 5th February; visiting plenty of village churches along the way; and hopefully finishing by Easter. Walk 1 I set off on a grey day from Ashbourne Market Cross, the official start of the Bonnie Prince Charlie walk. My first stop was Ashbourne Methodist Church, a severely symmetrical building smelling faintly of cinnamon, where I prayed for a few people who were on my mind. The route climbed steeply out of As

Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Longford to Lees and BONUS walk

The walk from Longford to Lees didn't include any churches. That was frankly not on. So I found an extra walk which included not one, not two, but three churches. Also it was shorter, because I didn't have time to fit in a longer walk that week. The next week I managed the churchless section of the Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk. It was a little more adventurous than I expected! Walk 1 (Three Churches) For this route I followed the directions given by Dave Welford on his very useful blog . As soon as I parked up by Sutton-on-the-Hill church, I heard the bleating of lambs. Spring must be coming. number 11 mum and baby   I crossed a field full of numbered lambs and ewes and came out in the middle of Sutton village. Turning left by the village preschool, I picked up another footpath to take me across the fields to Dalbury. A ruined cottage stood crumbling lonesomely - the Gamekeeper's Cottage, apparently.  I was amused by Dave Welford's comments about the miserable farmer who

Bonnie Prince Charlie Walk: Lees to Derby

These final two Bonnie Prince Charlie walks were quite a contrast: the first across empty fields and along quiet roads; the second crossing from country into city as I walked into Derby. I started both walks at the Great Northern Greenway car park, just off Station Road in Mickleover.  Walk 1 In order to keep walking the Bonnie Prince Charlie way in the right direction, I first found my way back to Lees by an alternative route. The first section, along the cycle path, was well paved. After that it quickly got very muddy. At least it's a popular walk from Mickleover to Radbourne, so it was easy to find the path.  St Andrew's, Radbourne, is rather dominated by memorials. It looks as if the preacher would be hemmed in by tombs!      I liked this bench outside, with the text, "The thoughtful soul to solitude retires". Writing this, I only just realised it was a quote. Turns out it's from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam . The rest of the walk certainly provided solitude,